Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah Crisis Thread was the "Is Israel right" thread

gandalf

cik wrote:

OK I'll try give you the links, here are the UNFIL reports, its worth reading all of them from the last days, but yesterday is the one I referred to
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/

this is the report from the Canadian
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060718/mideast_lebanon_UN_060716/20060718/

Thank you I will look at them.

So lets be clear, are you totally confident that no matter what 100% of the blame lies with the Israelis and 0% lies with Hezbollah?
Im asking for clarification (not putting words in your mouth)
as as far as I can see you didnt answer my original question directly

What is your original question?

I will answer this one for you. Blame is on both sides.

However that does not give an army of a soverign state carte blance clearance to operate like a terrorist organisation by targeting civilians which despite the denials by the IDF the stats clearly show is exactly what is happening.

In the past every one of these actions has given birth to an organisation that has come back and bitten Isreal on the ass.

The PLO came first, the IDF attacked Lebanon and Hezbollah came into being. Then we had the interfada (spl) and Hamas was borne. Makes you wonder what phoenix will rise out of these IDF created ashes. I doubt very much it will be the stability and peace that the ordinary people of Northern Isreal desire.

Fair enough I thought you were trying to take away from the merit of my questions because it was I, a newbie, who posted them

No I was pointing out that you have an agenda, especially as you have never taken part in any other discussion in any other section of the site.

I am asking them because I think that it is useful to do so, people seem to think that there is no way that such a think could be justified Im checking how fully thought through that conviction is.

You see its why you think it is useful is my question. I sense a crude attempt at deflection.

banaman

Its a long post but its an opinion at odds with that parrotted by our "free press"
http://www.counterpunch.com/

cik

gandalf wrote:

What is your original question?

It was in my first post, I when asked this - are you totally confident that no matter what 100% of the blame lies with the Israelis and 0% lies with Hezbollah?- I was asking only about this specific bombing.

Im not really interested discussing the wider war - it depresses the life out of me...I think I know all the great argumentative points on each side and when I think agree with one I can all too easily cite another to counteract it...its like playing chess with yourself only more depressing because its not a game...
all of this means Im really not sure whether to envy or pity someone who has the peace or clarity of mind to declare their support for one of the sides.

gandalf wrote:

No I was pointing out that you have an agenda, especially as you have never taken part in any other discussion in any other section of the site.

Im really just interested in this flashpoint, I'll probably be gone once its been addressed

gandalf wrote:

You see its why you think it is useful is my question. I sense a crude attempt at deflection.

If you agree that the facts have not yet been ascertained then there is no truth at the moment to be deflected from

so maybe when your finished with the links you - and any others can answer
are you totally confident that no matter what 100% of the blame for the killing of these 4 UN troops lies with the Israelis and 0% lies with Hezbollah?

gandalf

Ok read the report and it did not say that Hezbollah were firing from the vicinity of Khiyam and it appears that it is quite clearcut that they were attacked even when they warned the IDF that they were firing on a UN post.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr010.pdf

The other link was one from the 18th of July prior to this attack therefore you have nothing concrete to back up your little theory.

A pathetic attempt at misdirection.

gandalf

Oh in answer to your specific question. Isreal are 100% guilty in the murder of the UN observers, just as they are guilty in murdering the nearly 400 civilians they have blown to pieces in Lebanon.

A large portion of the dead are children but then again it is preventative action they could grow up to be terrorists.

The only action I can take now is to boycott purchasing Isreali goods.

Morlar

cik wrote:

How can you be so sure of the fact one day after the event?
What other sacred cows are not allowed to be questioned?

Have you read the UNFIL press releases in recent days?
and the Canadian Major Generals information that he had received from the deceased soldier 3 days before he died?

What other sacred cows are not allowed to be questioned?

The only sacred cow in relation to this that I can think of that cant be questioned is the holocaust. I cant think of any others can you ? If you can name one.

To clarify I never said that people werent allowed to 'question' as you put it - you chose to characterise what I said in that way and I am not sure why.
What I did say was that it was not remotely surprising that israel/idf/pro-israel posters on web forums would try to raise doubts and absolve israel of their obvious guilt and responsibility in this matter (also in the wider slaughter of lebaneese and palestinians which is ongoing right now). There is a clear pattern - israel has a long long long history of killing innocent non-jews (civilians I am talking about here), within the last month we have seen many examples - I am sure you will remember the 2 red cross ambulances attacked this week too.

gbh

If you have the time, read this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Invasion_of_Lebanon

cik

gandalf wrote:

Ok read the report and it did not say that Hezbollah were firing from the vicinity of Khiyam and it appears that it is quite clearcut that they were attacked even when they warned the IDF that they were firing on a UN post.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr010.pdf

The other link was one from the 18th of July prior to this attack therefore you have nothing concrete to back up your little theory.

A pathetic attempt at misdirection.

Of course I have nothing concrete to back up my 'little theory' but you set the bar much lower than anything concrete, you said - Is there even a shread of truth in this I doubt it severely. -
I think I have at least shown that there is a basis for asking 'if' Hezbollah were abusing the unarmed post would Israel have been justified in bombing it.

No matter you have firmly cast your judgement.

Im not going to flog a dead horse here you seem to think it is irrelevent that the soldier who died seem to say 3 days prior that Hezbollah were in the vicinity.

Some day I hope the facts will emerge but I'll hold my judgement till then...

gandalf

You have shown absolutely nothing tbh.

I think the fact 10 calls were made in 6 hours asking the Isreali's to stop bombing them and then they get taken out by a precision guided munition is the most telling fact from this disgrace. It is disrespectful to Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and the other soldiers that died to try and whitewash this incident.

oscarBravo

gbh wrote:

If you have the time, read this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Invasion_of_Lebanon

Threads merged.

cik

Morlar wrote:

To clarify I never said that people werent allowed to 'question' as you put it - you chose to characterise what I said in that way and I am not sure why.
What I did say was that it was not remotely surprising that israel/idf/pro-israel posters on web forums would try to raise doubts and absolve israel of their obvious guilt and responsibility in this matter

What you actually said was

Morlar wrote:

I had a feeling that sooner or later there would be assertions that it was somehow magically mystically hizbollah's fault and not israel. I am surprised the UN havent been blamed for this yet.

so you know the facts, they are obvious and anything that could blur your positively open mind would be magical or mystical - that seems pretty set in stone to me - and you came across pretty touchy about me question it...thats why I called it a sacred cow

Morlar wrote:

(also in the wider slaughter of lebaneese and palestinians which is ongoing right now). There is a clear pattern - israel has a long long long history of killing innocent non-jews (civilians I am talking about here), within the last month we have seen many examples - I am sure you will remember the 2 red cross ambulances attacked this week too.

It is pretty suspect to find guilt in one incident on the basis of a 'pattern'... maybe you should consider how UN soldiers have Hezbollah shot in the last few days? how many UN vehicles they have shot at and which UN post they mortared?
The pattern is that its a war zone...there is fog...if you think you know something for sure that only happened yesterday then I am flammuxed

cik

oops that post should read -
how many UN soldiers have been shot by Hezbollah - how many UN vehicles they have shot at and which UN post they mortared by Hezbollah?

Calina

cik wrote:

Im not going to flog a dead horse here you seem to think it is irrelevent that the soldier who died seem to say 3 days prior that Hezbollah were in the vicinity.

You're right, it's a dead horse. Three days is a long time in war, particularly aerial bombardment. The UN repeatedly asked the IDF to stop bombing them on the day in question. The IDF did not stop until they had killed four observers. Suggesting that because three days previously Hezbollah were in the vicinity is actually irrelevant in light of the fact that the UN asked the IDF to stop. There is no way they can actually claim "mistake" or "justification". What matters is the behaviour of Israel on the day in question, not Hezbollah three whole days before hand. What is critical is that they were asked to stop and they did not. You are trying to divert from that but it is an unfortunate reality that Israel has ensured a drop in terms of any international respect it holds. They knew they were bombing the UN.

cik

gandalf wrote:

You have shown absolutely nothing tbh.

I think the fact 10 calls were made in 6 hours asking the Isreali's to stop bombing them and then they get taken out by a precision guided munition is the most telling fact from this disgrace. It is disrespectful to Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and the other soldiers that died to try and whitewash this incident.

Holy schmoly, who is trying to whitewash anything?
you seem to have rejected any idea of presumption of innocence and have slated me for trying to establish the possibility of some innocence...
once again I am flummuxed!

LostinBlanch

gandalf wrote:

In the past every one of these actions has given birth to an organisation that has come back and bitten Isreal on the ass.

The PLO came first, the IDF attacked Lebanon and Hezbollah came into being. Then we had the interfada (spl) and Hamas was borne.

I may be wrong but I thought that Hamas was originally "encouraged" to set up by Israel as a counterpoint to the PLO, and to help split their support.
So now they are fighting their own creation.

Like someone said earlier I hope we don't reap what they sow. Mind you Dermot Ahern thinks we're in danger of doing so with his World War Three comments of last week.

gandalf

There is no innocence in this case. If there was one phone call then one could assume an error was made. But 10 calls over 6 hours and I would presume it was premeditated and probably designed to wreak the efforts to get a multinational peace enforcement organisation setup and from today's media stories it has worked.

Following the deaths of four UN observers in an Israeli air strike, Australia has withdrawn 12 UN peacekeepers, describing the prospect of sending an international force to Lebanon right now as a "suicide mission"

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5219360.stm

So now Isreal gets to continue its genocidial blizkrieg of Lebanon uniterupted until Condie says stop.

cik

Calina wrote:

You're right, it's a dead horse. Three days is a long time in war, particularly aerial bombardment. The UN repeatedly asked the IDF to stop bombing them on the day in question. The IDF did not stop until they had killed four observers. Suggesting that because three days previously Hezbollah were in the vicinity is actually irrelevant in light of the fact that the UN asked the IDF to stop. There is no way they can actually claim "mistake" or "justification". What matters is the behaviour of Israel on the day in question, not Hezbollah three whole days before hand. What is critical is that they were asked to stop and they did not. You are trying to divert from that but it is an unfortunate reality that Israel has ensured a drop in terms of any international respect it holds. They knew they were bombing the UN.

None of the above is inconsitent with the possiblilty that Hezbollah resumed their supposed position outside the post, lets not forget the post was the most prized position in the war at that point, lodgic would dictate that the IDF kept firing at something other than the UN for hours while the UN asked them to stop.
What else could the UN do - if Hezbollah were there they would have no possibility of removing them but they might have a chance to get the IDF to stop.
The UN have already established that they are neutral between Hezbollah fighters and the IDF - neutral means when someone is firing outside away from you then you dont get involved when someone is firing at you it is a different story.

But like you say it is a dead horse, minds are made up and will not consider the possibility of being reopened

Manic Moran

But 10 calls over 6 hours

There is the thought that if Israel really did want the UN compound destroyed, it wouldn't have taken them 6 hours to do it.

The reference to the US Navy ship (USS Liberty) being attacked a few posts ago is slightly erroneous. There was never any attempt by the Israeli military to pretend that they were anything but Israeli. It was a sustained attack involving aircraft and surface craft.

NTM

gandalf

LostinBlanch wrote:

I may be wrong but I thought that Hamas was originally "encouraged" to set up by Israel as a counterpoint to the PLO, and to help split their support.
So now they are fighting their own creation.

Like someone said earlier I hope we don't reap what they sow. Mind you Dermot Ahern thinks we're in danger of doing so with his World War Three comments of last week.

Actually you are right. Kind of reminds me of some lyrics from a song

The enemy of the enemy
Who's the enemy of the enemy
He's a friend
til he's the enemy again

Morlar

cik wrote:

oops that post should read -
how many UN soldiers have been shot by Hezbollah - how many UN vehicles they have shot at and which UN post they mortared by Hezbollah?

Except the fact your missing here is that the title of this thread is
Is israel right
not
is hizbollah right

That would be a whole other thread and maybe by the time this is over there will be one called that.

I am more interested to know how many Irish peacekeepers or non irish unifil were killed by israel than by hizbollah. For the simple reason that israel are supposed to be a civilised democracy here -they and the americans hold them up as the shining light for the region - lets not forget that important fact.

PS Heres a quick sample of what I found on the web re the Irish soldiers killed by israel

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:mbUBVJ3aI9wJ:topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html%3Fquery%3DIRELAND,%2520REPUBLIC%2520OF%26field%3Dgeo%26match%3Dexact+irish+soldiers+killed+in+lebannon&hl=en&gl=ie&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a

also

http://www.rte.ie/news/1999/0531/lebanon.html

I didnt try to draw a pattern from a single incident (thats just what you said that I did) - I do see a pattern looking back over the years of israels history of a complete disregard for civilians whether its atrocities against the palestinian population or the lebaneese population, for more information on this look up the un voting record, anything that both israel and the us veto stands a strong chance of being related to this topic. The nasty part of this is that idf killings of civilians seem to have one common thread - providing they are non-jewish civilians. If you argue that we should take each israeli atrocity as it comes along on its own merits without context I would disagree with you on that one. There is a pattern and its clear as day.

cik

Morlar wrote:

If you argue that we should take each israeli atrocity as it comes along on its own merits without context I would disagree with you on that one. There is a pattern and its clear as day.

Thank you for being so honest, its no often people admit prejudice so clearly

Morlar wrote:

I am more interested to know how many Irish peacekeepers or non irish unifil were killed by israel than by hizbollah. For the simple reason that israel are supposed to be a civilised democracy here

Which brings me back to my original question (which no one seems to have dared contemplate) - if Hezbollah were using unarmed UN soldiers as shields for covering their fire would the IDF be justified in returning fire?

I suspect once that is answered I will be gone

Manic Moran

Jimboo_Jones wrote:

The UN observers where unarmed.

That kindof sucks.

Especially when you have instances of Hezbullah using the UN as cover to attack Israeli positions. From the late 2005 UNIFIL report:

On 12 July, three Hizbollah fighters crawled within 10 metres of the barbed wire around the technical fence near United Nations position 1-32A, south of Naqoura, and fired four AK-47 rounds at an IDF position. IDF soldiers did not respond to the firing.

If I were the UN troop inside that position, I would be extremely miffed with the Hezbullah chaps for putting my life in danger.

if Hezbollah were using unarmed UN soldiers as shields for covering their fire would the IDF be justified in returning fire

No. Legal, yes, but justified, no. The tactical necessity just doesn't seem to have been there, I don't think it would have been a militarily war-losing mistake to leave it be and just complain to the UN.

NTM

Calina

cik wrote:

Thank you for being so honest, its no often people admit prejudice so clearly



Which brings me back to my original question (which no one seems to have dared contemplate) - if Hezbollah were using unarmed UN soldiers as shields for covering their fire would the IDF be justified in returning fire?

I suspect once that is answered I will be gone

I answered and said it wasn't. You're still here. Are you waiting for the "right" answer or something?

cik

Calina wrote:

I answered and said it wasn't. You're still here. Are you waiting for the "right" answer or something?

Sorry, my mistake, thanks for playing

Morlar

cik wrote:

Thank you for being so honest, its no often people admit prejudice so clearly

Your confusing prejudice with being able to make an assessment of israeli violence, you cant seriously think that people will indefinitely give israel the benefit of the doubt do you ?

After each and every atrocity - seriously ? each time the sun comes up the world should forget about what israel did the day before the week before the month year etc ?

That just wouldnt be realistic and I think you know that. There is a pattern here clear as day - going back years. I think your trying to paint me as being prejudiced for saying so - when in fact it would be more prejudicial (in favour of israel) not to mention that simple fact.

cik

Manic Moran wrote:

No. Legal, yes, but justified, no. The tactical necessity just doesn't seem to have been there, I don't think it would have been a militarily war-losing mistake to leave it be and just complain to the UN.

NTM

So it merely just comes down to tactical necessity - some times ot would be justified - I think this was the most covet post in the region?

cik

Morlar wrote:

Your confusing prejudice with being able to make an assessment of israeli violence, you cant seriously think that people will indefinitely give israel the benefit of the doubt do you ?

and I think you are confusing some wriggle room and zero wriggle room you said

Morlar wrote:

If you argue that we should take each israeli atrocity as it comes along on its own merits without context I would disagree with you on that one. There is a pattern and its clear as day.

as fine an admission of prejudice as your ever likely to come across

metrovelvet

Does anyone know why they wont give Isreal back the other soldier and where is he?

Morlar

cik wrote:

and I think you are confusing some wriggle room and zero wriggle room you said

Originally Posted by Morlar
If you argue that we should take each israeli atrocity as it comes along on its own merits without context I would disagree with you on that one. There is a pattern and its clear as day.

as fine an admission of prejudice as your ever likely to come across

Yes I consider israel killing 400+ lebaneese civilians in about 10 days as an atrocity, also the killing of 4 identified and unarmed un personnell in a big white building that hadnt moved in 30 years and was painted white an atrocity too. The list goes on. You can call it a victory of IDF I would call it an atrocity - sue me.

cik

Morlar wrote:

You can call it a victory of IDF I would call it an atrocity - sue me.

and out comes the strawman